Evening Star Newspaper, January 26, 1929, Page 8

S THE EVENING STAR e SR Sy Movning Biiion. . WASHINGTON, D. C SATURDAY....January 26, 1920 THEODORE W. NOYES....Editor The Evening Star Newspaper Company usiness Office: t and Pennsylvania Ave. Office: 110 East 42nd St. Chicago Offce: Tower Building. Buropean Office 14 Regent St.. London. England. Rate by Carrier Within the City. The Evening Star..... .......45¢Der onth The Evening and Sunday Star (when 4 Sundays) .. . 60c per month | ‘The Evening and Sunday Star . (when 5 Sundass)...........65¢ per month The Sunday Star ........ Coll on mace at rders may be sent Main 5000. Rate by Mail—Payable in Advance. Maryland and Virginia. Datly and Sunday....1 yr., $1000: 1 mo., 85c Daily only 1 6. 1 mo., 50c Sunday only . 1yr $400; 1 wo. 40c All Other States and Canada. v and Sunday..l yr..$12.00; 1 mo, $100 Daily only Jdy $800; 1 mo, 75¢ Sunday only 1 yr. $.00; 1 mo., 50c Member of the Associated Press. The Associated Fress is exclusively cntitled to the use for repubdlization of all re s patches credited to it or not otherwise cred- ited in this paper and also th 1 Liews published herein. All rizhts of publicatton of Special dispatches herein are also reserved. = Oscar W. Underwood. Oscar W. Underwood is dead and th country mourns. A great American of | great attainments, the former Senator from Alabama has left his mark upon American life in the legislation which he helped to frame. The country will | remember him as a statesman. To his | friends he has left the memory of a kindly, courageous, dignified gentleman. It was with keen regret that his col- leagues saw Senator Underwood retire from active public life two years ago, at | the expiration of his sccond term in the Senaté. For twenty years in the House of Representatives and for twelve years in the Senate Mr. Underwcod had been in the service of the country. He w called to leadership by the Democra of the House when control of that body passed during the Taft administration from Republican hands to Democratic. As chairman of the House ways and means committee he had charge of the Underwood-Simmons tariff bill, which was written into law after President Wilson had entered the White House in 1913. Soon after Mr. Underwood en- | tered the Senate the Democratic leader of that body, Senator Martin of Virginia, dicd. Notwithstanding the fact that the Senator from Alabama was a newcomer, his Democratic col- leagues, recognizing his qualities of leadership, picked him to succeed Sena- tor Martin. To have held his party leadership in both House and Senate is & unique honor. On three occasions Senator Under- wood was made a candidate by his friends for the presidential nomination, the first time in 1912, when he had be- come leader of the House Democrats. The Underwood delegates stood with their candidate for many ballots at the Baltimore convention, in fact until the nomination of Woodrow Wilson was practically determined upon. In 1920. and still again in 1924, Mr. Underwood's name was put forward for the presiden- tial nomination. Rarely has any man been as well qualified to hold the office of Chief Executive of the United States. But no Southern Democrat has been mominated for President by his party since the Civil War, owing to a feelirig upon the part of Southern Democrats themselves that there was little chance of his election. Had Mr. Underwood been the choice of his party in 1912, when the split came among the Repub- licans supporting Taft on the one hand | and Roosevelt on the other, this belief that a Southerner could not be elected President might well have been dis- sipated. Kentucky was the State of Mr. Un- derwood's birth. He was a graduate of the University of Virginia. But Ala- bama was his choice as a residence until after he had completed his public service. In his retirement he chese to live on an estate which he had pur- chased in Virginia not far from Wash- ington. His retirement from the Sen- ate was voluntary, although it was recognized by Mr. Underwood that there would have been a severe fight to unhorse him had he sought election again to the Senate because of his open opposition to the Ku Klux Klan, which had grown strong in his State, and be- cause of his opposition to prohibition. A notable service by Mr. Underwood was his membership in the American delegation to the Washington Confer- ence on Problems of the Pacific and the Limitation of Armament, He was se- lected to serve his country at the con- fercace by the late President Harding, although Mr. Underwood was a Demo- crat. Mr. Underwood was a Democrat of the old school. He believed in the prin- ciples of his party as enunciated by ‘Thomas Jefferson. Indeed, he was a man of principle rather than of poli- tics. America has lost a statesman. B Traffic regulations at least permit a police officer engaged in checking park- ers overtime to assert the majesty of the law with a piece of chalk instead of a gat. R More Brokers Proposed. So greatly has the business of the New York Stock Exchange increased during the past two or three years, and especially in the year just closed, that ils resources have been very severely taxed. The mere reporting of transac- tions has become a matter of difficulty, with many delays. Engineers have worked on devices for the more prompt and complete registration of sales and purchases of securities, but despite im- provements in the procedure and mech- anism each day's market, if especially active, leaves an arrears of reports of sometimes half an hour or more. ‘This, however, is not the only effect of the enormous growth of business on the “big board.” The increase in trans- actions from two and three millions of shares daily to four and five millicns has taxed the personnel of the ex- change.. A steady succession of four and five million share days has demon- strated, it is felt, that more members are needed to carry on this big business, So recently the governing committee took up the question, and now reports a recommendation of an increase in membership from 1,100 to 1375, or twenty-five per cent. This proposal will be laid before the exchange and voted upon soon, and it is expected that it will be approved. For the proposition > | gress during the present session. carries with it a feature that will cause it to appeal to the personnel. The pro- posed new seats will have a value in “rights” of roughly $137,500,000, or about $125,000 to each broker now hold- ing a seat on the exchange. A little over three years ago a proposition to increase the membership was over- whelmingly rejected by the exchang but in that case the plan had no fea- ture whereby the membership would profit in any way from the increase. It | is therefore thought that the new pro- posal will be approved. This inerease in membership is an indication of confidence in the con- tinuation of “good times.” If, as some predict, the average daily turnover on the exchange rises in a few years to ten million shares, memberships even ; at the higher figure will be well worth investment, It is, of course, possible that a lean period may intervene, fol- lowing a sharp and protracted break in the market, with a considerable diminution of public buying. Then the enlarged membership will not have enough business to go around. It is the persistence of the unprofessional in- vestor in stock buying that keeps this market going. Should there be any- thing to cause a general curtailment of orders “Wall Street” would be a com- ly idle place. e The New License Law. The Commissioners’ committee which some time ago undertook to revise and bring up to date the District’s anti- quated license law of 1902 has com- pleted its task and laid the finished product before the Gibson subcom- mittee of the House, at whose sugges- | tion the revision was made. As the bill incorporating the proposed changes corrects certain abuses which have de- veloped from lack of proper regula- tion and more evenly distributes the license tax burden among those insti- tutions and individuals which in equity should share it, it is to be hoped that the legislators will make it their busi- ness to push the measure through Con- The bill, or one like it, should have received attention long -ago. There is no ex- cuse for further delay. As a revenue-producing measure the new bill would add about fifty thousand dollars more to funds raised in the District. The old bill, producing ap- proximately thirteen thousand five hundred licenses, brought a net profit to the District of about sixty thousand dollars. The new measure would re- sult in the issuance of about sixteen thousand five hundred licenses and produce a net profit to the District of one hundred and ten thousand dollars. But the revenue-producing aspects of the measure are not as important as the remedial effects to be expected in "connection with some unregulated prac- tices now existing in the District. It requires, for one thing, a license of five dollars for those professional guides who undertake to pilot visitors through the city and who at present are able to come and go at will under no sem- blance of supervision as to their char- acter or quelifications. The bill would place with the superintendent of police the authority to license guides and would empower the police to require them to wear proper badges asa means of identification. The new bill hits at the nuisance of doorbell ringing by agents and solicitors who go about seeking orders in advance for articles to be delivered later by requiring that they be examined and licensed by the police, the license to cost five dollars. The licensee must also post a five hun- dred-dollar bond. This enables the au- thorities to require from door-to-door solicitors and agents a guarantee as to their own responsibility and the re- sponsibility of the organizations they represent. Dealers in dangerous weapons must pay a license of fifty dollars annually. ‘Whiie such a regulation would not ac- complish a great deal to restrict the unregulated traffic in dangerous weap- ons, it would in part correct the pres- ent condition which permits anybody anywhere to sell such articles without police supervision. The license fee for taxicabs is raised from nine to twenty- five dollars for cach vehicle; there is an increase in the license on sight- seeing vehicles, and the ubiquitous clair- voyants and fortune tellers must, under the bill, pay a license fee of two hun- dred and fifty dollars in place of the twenty-five now demanded. One of the important provisions of the bill is to base the license for busses on mileage, in place of the nine-dollar fee now exacted. Under the old sys- tem there is discrimination against the busses maintained and operated by the traction companies, which now pay four per cent on the gross income. These are only a few of the many they indicate the general intent of an important measure for Washington which demands the attention of Con- gress. —————.—— ‘Tranquillity will be assured if a peace pact among nations can operate as ef- fectually as a gentlemen's agreement has operated among financiers, ——r—————— Einstein’s New Theory. ‘Theoretical physics today is moving too rapidly to be followed even by pro- fessional mathematicians. Sir Oliver Lodge admits that he was unable to follow the argument before the Royal Society of Prof. A. S. Eddington, director of the Cambridge University Observa- tory, on the nature of the electron. And Eddington himself, one of the keenest intellects and clearest thinkers in this field now living, said that his mind was incapable of following his own equations to their logical conclusion without be- coming mired in a bottomless profundity. Within the next few days the Prussian Academy of Sciences will publish a paper by Albert Einstein which physi- cists the world over expect to prove of cpochal significance. It will describe 2 theoretical structure of the universe {from the very nature of which the mysterious phenomena of gravity and clectricity are inevitable consequences. The intellect will be able to follow Einstein, but the imagination will not. His theoretical structure of the universe cannot be visualized and the great majority of men and women think only in images. There are extremely few persons in the world capable of thinking purely in mathematical symbols without visualization. Visualization depends fundamentally on experience. ‘The imagination can rearrange and reinter- pret experience, but it cannot transcend experience. The limits of experience | coatings of tw changes covered by the new bill, hul‘ THE EVENING § TAR, WASHINGTON, are clrcumscribed quite definitely by the nature of the mind. Now the theoretical structure of Ein- stein, even more than the electrons of Eddington, obviously lies beyond con- ccivable experience. It is a reality beyond our own reality—a reality to which all our world of sense experience bears the relation of a shadow on a thick wall. We are as incapable of penetrating it as is the shadow of enetrating the reality across which it drifts. The Einstein theories leave the lay observer with a haunting sense of in- sufficiency and unreality~-a vague, dis- comforting nihilistic delusion. The four and five dimensional concepts required to construct a mathematical universe in which gravity and electro-magnetism will result -from structure alone are | millions of years beyond the boundaries of the mind playing with images. | - Nature's Artistry. By an unusual combination of mois- ture and cold a phenomenon appeared | in Washington and the surrounding | arca last night and this morning which surpassed the most artistic efforts of man in decorative effects. A thin coat- ing of icc formed upon the trees and shrubs, without causing any sleet upon | the pavements and walks. The moon- light gave the landscape a strange glinting brilliance throughout the night, and this morning's sun transformed the | | Spectacie into one of radiant loveliness. Seldom is such a scene presented to view. Usually the ice formation occurs when the skies are overc j the lights of the street lamps shed rays through the crystals and translucent and limbs. On this oceasion both moon and sun shone without obstructicn and gave an aspect, | of splendor to the scene. It is often remarked of brilliant sun- sets that they are “too vivid to be real.” It might thus be said of the spectacle of last night and this morning that it was unbelievable, so perfect was the coating of ice, so brilliant was the re- flection of light, so mystic the whole ef- fect. But Nature performs her miracles despite the doubts of men. It is to be observed that the picture thus painted by the elements upon the canvas of the Capital last night was not of the “modernistic” school of art. No laws of perspective or composition were violated. The scene was rendered witn truth and sincerity and without offense to the sense of proportion. o A broom or a rolling-pin was once‘ humorously depicted as the wifely weapon. At present an offending hus- band is suppgsed to be lucky if gun play is not introduced into domestic dis- cipline. ———. = Uncertainty of political life was shown by the career of Oscar Under- wood. Few men have been more highly regarded as possible material, even for the United States presidency. o Admirers of Al Smith are inclined to be a little proud of the fact that the political campaign in which he was de- feated brings him to attention as the author of a best seller. ———— The sincere solicitude shown in con- nection with the illness of King George calls attention to the fact that it is still ‘ possible for a monarch to be thoroughly ! popular, N Capital continues to combine and'| concentrate. It has become a them‘y‘ of finance that one good 'merger de- serves another. ————— New York theaters notify chauffeurs of “stagger hours.” Night clubs ulsa‘ are supposed to have them, but later in the evening. . of Indiana threatens to take some of the publicity away from Standard Oil of New Jersey. ] Standard Oil SHOOTING STARS. BY PHILANDER JOHNSON. The Crystal Forest, We sigh a little as we say That Fairy Land is far away, Back in those hours of gentle mirth ‘When youthful fancy ruled the earth, | With January comes a spell Like that which served us once so well. The sleety spray on branches tossed Is turned to jeweling by the frost; And dormant boughs more beauty show Even than in the springtide glow. With an enchantment ever new, { The Crystal Forest comes to view. And maybe, as you doze and dream, Old friends will more familiar seem, As Goblins, Pixies, Gnomes and Elves Haste hither to disport themselves, Where prismed hues are on display Through a resplendent Winter day. In secret, we may turn to look In some neglected fairy book, ‘Where children, who were very good, Found rescue from a haunted wood. It is well worth the storm and snow To sce the Crystal Forest grow. Not a Time Consumer. “You never insist on making a long answered Senator Sorghum. “You must first take pains to interest your auditor, and then you must be careful not to make him tired.” Jud Tunkins says there couldn't be any political bosses if people were never too idle-minded to do their-own think- ing. Start and Finish, A statesman's language impolite Life's pleasure may diminish, He very often starts a fight For other folks to finish. Large Business Owverlooked. “Wall Street has a hand in all kinds of finance.” “I don’t know about that,” answered D. C, SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 1929. THIS AND THAT BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL. ‘The article in this column the other day on the true function of the radio set, as we see it—or would it be- better to say hear it?—stirred up the “fans” to response, heated and otherwise. We were pleased to discover that the set owners, almost to a man, agreed with our main contention that “a modern radio set is, after all, a musical instrument. Before all,” we had con- tinued, “it is a musical instrument. Its distance-getting abilities help make it the wonder it is, but they are not ecs- sential to its complete enjoyment as a musical instrument. The basis of popular radio is and'must continue to be music.” One of the most interesting of the letters received was from one whose words have been read in print many times and whose voice has been heard over radio. He said: “Dear Author of This and That: “So you appreciate music, but see no reason why a radio listener should seek distance? Unless, forsooth, to ‘sustain the impression that whatever he pur- chas st be at the peak of its re- spective class.’ “And you a newspaper man, also, with enough imagination to humanize your cat by the column! I mean no reflection on the cat. “When The Evening Star ceases to print a date line, when its news range is bounded by the Potomac River and the three District lines, when human beings stop wondering what is beyond the horizon—then, only then, will dial twisters be sfied with an ‘effective range’ of 50 miles. “Yes, your radio instrument is a musical instrument, for local stations only. Also it is something else. It is a sort of magic wing which will set you down in Texas where a plaintive plan- tation hand sings about ‘Forty Cent Cotton and Ninety Cent Meat,' which is not music, but tells the story of what the farmer thinks about better than any of the press agents in Washington that I have heard. “And did you not, the other evening, get aboard the special train for a ride through Cascade Tunnel, hear that en- gine’s weird blast as it emerged and went crunching away on a new route where traveling salesmen will play bridge and flappers will read in the ob- servation car unconscious that they are beneficiaries of higher mathematics and engineering skill? Yes, I know that came over local, but don't quibble. “Come, now, take a whirl some eve- ning around by the Cuba station, with the music that reminds you of a quaint old Spanish costume; swing over to Minneapolis, where it becomes plain that a fractional point in the wheat quotations means bread and butter to thousands of farmers; listen to Denver, with a jazz orchestra pounding on the welkin of the aloof Rockies; come hemeward by way of Toronto, with some French Canadian schoolboy chorus | singing ‘Allouette,’ the most stirring folk song on this continent. “Think, then, a moment; it is all there in your room. These genii of the ether, these constant tides of elec- trical motes (you will note that I am not being technical) waiting to zoom upon your tympani at a twist of your | wrist. They are always there, Other things than stations are broadcasting; thousands of power houses, thousands of strect cars; hundreds of the phe- nomena of civilization which, "while we are in front of that radio, we curiously classify as ‘disturbances,’ and when old Nature herself takes a hand, then we call it static. “And out of that messy jargon of the ether, which is as hypothetical as Dr. Austin Clark's new theory of Cre- ation, we yank, by means of a queer tube which, as the Scotchman said, doesn't throw off enough light to read 2 mnewspaper by, a touch of old New Orleans, a queer dialect from a neigh- bor island, a snatch of a foreign lan- guage from an exotic people, a frag- ment of a loving messag sent by some mother who counsels her son to keep his feet dry while he is trapping furs around Hudson Bay; then comes an S O 8 from out of the sea—and the whole works goes silent as if by magic. Sincerely, H.R.J.” Xk Well, folks, as the radio speakers say, there you have a bit of magic on its own account. We do not know that we have seen in print a better state- ment of the essential wonder of the radio receiving set. ‘We beg the writer's pardon for cut- | ting out the name of the magazine the i flappers will be reading. We have a | better opinion of flappers than that! [ Our heart goes out to all the ladies, |and we want to portray them as read- | ing the best, and if they insist on read- |ing something else again we equally insist on being discreet. ‘This column agrees whole-heartedly | with what its correspondent says about the essential wonder of distance recep- tion. While it must continue to be |true that some get more of a “kick” out of hearing abouf. Jake Hennesse! tire repair shop which is located at 12: | East’ Main street, Ollapalolla, Wis., and | which is always glad to serve you, |ladies and gentlemen. than in hearing |about a brother repair man located | within the disputed 50-mile range, it |is unquestionably so that:distance re- | ception has helped make radio what |it is tod: We admitted so much, and jwill wantonly dispute with any one | who would cry us nay. | We, too, have had the pleasure of stepping out through those constant tides of electrical motes (which is goed) and which are waiting to zoom upon our palpitating tympani at a twist of the wrist (which is consider- ably better). We, too, took that fa- | mous trip through the Cascade Tunne! |although we kept wondering all the {time who or which was getting the | most fame out of it, the tunnel or Gra- | ham McNamee? We, too, and alas! have been set down in. Texas, with a bang, right in front of Appleton's music store, located at 109 West Main street, Omalala, where you will find all the latest rec- {ords and sheet music, ladies and gen- tlemen, and now we will play record No. “Just a Little Love, a Little which is rather scratchy, but you can't blame it, the darn thing has been Kkicking around the shop for the past 10 years! We, too, have swung out far, wide and handsome over the glorious fur- naces of Pittsburgh, and have oft heard, in the raucous night, the dulcet an- nouncer at KDKA giving items of vital | interest to men and women every- where, “Hogs opened 9.80 today and closed at 9.81: steers were 14.56 on the | Omaha market: onions were strong, and |lettuce wilting.” We, too, have listened to some cursed | jazz_orchestra pounding on the roof of | the Rockies until the cows come home, only to find the cupboard bare and old | Mother Hubbard gone on a wild party. But ah, sir and friend! you slipped up clear across the continent when you slipped that in about The Star’s news range not being bounded by the Potomac River, nor e'en the District Line (one will do). There we have you pleasantly on the hip. The point is that a newspaper goes in for “distance™ because it brings thence news and much pleasantry which could originate nowhere else, whereas music is just the same music whether it originates 3 miles away or 3,000 miles away. We insist on that, al- though we accept all you say about the drama of the S O S. We turned on our set the other afternoon, got no re- sponse, and almost tore it to pieces trying to find out what was the matter with it, until we happened to recall that we had read in The Star about the Florida sending out a call for help. An S O S shames our pretty, wonder- ful plaything. —— Last of -Philanthropic Dukes Expires After Life of Giving Tributes to a family whose gifts to the cause of education and social im- provement seldom have been rivaled in the history of the world are paid in newspaper comment on the death of Benjamin N. Duke of North Carolina, the last of the famous trio of his name. Reciting the history of the Dukes, the Asheville Times recalls: “Washingt:n Duke was the thrifty and canny founder of the Duke tobacco dynasty. His son, | James B, was the man who consolidated the. Duke fortune with other capital, and as the directing head of the Ameri- can Tobacco Co. played for a time with millions on an international chessboard of finance. It was the other son, Ben- jamin, who first of the three gave his interest to higher edhcation in North Carolina. And so it was largely through Benjamin Duke that the Duke family today has a record of having made gifts to education not equaled more than twice in the history of the world. * * * But for the Dukes, Trinity College might have remained a small college. * * * James Duke followed his father’s footsteps and his brother's influence as a benefactor of Trinity and Duke. Benjamin never forgot his first enthusiasm for the cause.” Discussing the loss that is involved in the death of the last of these great con- tributors to public welfare, the Newark Evening News states: *‘Mr. Ben’ is dead; ‘Mr. Bucl lied in 1925; Durham, C., sits desolate at her crossroads. For Benjamin N. Duke, whose life ended this week, and James Buchanan Duke, his younger brother, who was a Jersey- man for ‘a good part of his life, did, jointly and severally, more for their home city and the State of North Caro- lina than any other two citizens that notable Commonwealth ever fathered. It is significant that for Durham Ben- jamin Duke was never anything but ‘Mr. Ben.' A nickname like that denotes affection and respect. . Ben' was not as rich as ‘Mr. Buck,” but in pro- portion to his means he gave to his city and State its noblest benefaction ‘Mr. Buck’ gave something like $75,000,- 000 to Duke University, but ‘Mr. Ben’ gave continuously and with wise selec- tions where his money should go to do the most good. He studied the need for cach individual donation and made it fruitful. The hand of the Duke family is all over Durham.” Wk o “The Dukes put Durham on the world map,” declares the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, with the furthér comment on their careers: “Both of these sons dis- pensed vast amounts in gifts to charity and education. The family total of such contributions is estimated at $100,- 000,000. To better social conditions in cities and on the farms, to educate all classes, to expand the use of white coal, or water power, for the encouragement of unaffiliated manufacturers, to render aid to churches of different denomina- tions and to create a great university were worthy ambitions worthily real- ized. It is said that at one time Ben- Jjamin N. Duke's fortune was more than Uncle Bill Bottletop. “I read market quotations every day, but I never see any bootleg stock listed.” “A fortune,” said Hi Ho, the sage of Chinatown, “may find the joy of pos- session tempered by the fear of loss.” Dallying With a Rough Game. ‘There are some ladies on the list Who trifle with the tricks, And should be playing “contract whist” Instead of politic: “It's a purty good job of convertin',” sald Uncle Eben, “dat lasts all de way f'um one cams meetin’ to de next.” i $60,000,000, but that it has been in great scattered by his philan- “In his death,” says the Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch, “North Carolina and the South at large have lost a son who turned back through his philanthropies much of the wealth that was originally found in _the tobacco fields of his native State. Mr. Duke followed and elab- orated on the ideas of life his father, Washington Duke, utilized in building a forture that he passed on to his sons, who in turn carried on, and in later years endeared themsclves to North Carolina by substantial allocation of funds and securiti.s that have brought Duke University into the forefront of American educational institutions, placed Guilford College on a sound Folli | basis, and contributed liberally to s;'hnnls, hospitals and church activi- tles.” * K % x “On a railway train one day 40 years ago from old Newhern to Morehead ing to the Birmingham News, “Washington Duke, while the train was crossing a bridge on the Trent River, looked out the railway window and said to a friend of his who had been a general in the Confederate army, ‘General, if T had education, I could set that river afire’ Relating the incident, the former West Pointer confided to his friends, ‘Don’t smile at that. In his own way Wash Duke is a genius. If the man had education, he might in- deed set our rivers afire. He is one of these men who do almost anything they undertake.’” Thirty years later two of Washington Duke’s sons actually ‘set rivers afire’ It was the Dukes who originated and develobed the hydro- electric industry in North Carolina. That industry has ministered tremen- dously in making North Carolina the despair of all its rivals in the South's development.” “In his will, as in his gifts during his life,” says the Raleigh News and Ob- server, “ Duke sought to devise/his money where he believed it would best carry along his previous contributions. It is a will that is marked by beneficent derign to aid these individuals and in- utions in which he was most inter- ed. It shows that in death as well as in life he sought to be a good trustee of the wealth instrusted to him.” The Atlanta Constitution descrihes Benjamin Duke as “one of the Nation's most outstanding benefactors, contrib- uting to schools, hospitals, churches, orphanages and to needy individuals all over the United States.” o Scientist Sees Craters On Face of the Moon BY E. E. FREFE, PH. D. Another astronomer believes that he has observed something happening on the supposedly dead and airless world of the moon—changes which can only be ascribed, if they are real, to water or voleanic vapors or some other emang-~ tion from craters still not entirely ex- tinct. M. G. Bidault de 1'Isle, an ama- teur astronomer, whose private observa- tory at La Guette, France, contains an excellent telescope approximately 12 inches in diameter, watched a small craterlet inside one of the great moon craters, the one which earthly astron- omers name Posidon, almost continu- ously between August, 1927, and Sep- tember, 1928. Sometimes this tiny crater, scarcely more than a mile in diameter, appeared as clear and sharp as are most of the visible features on the moon. At intervals, however, M. Bidault de I'Isle was unable to see this tiny craterlet at all, its site seeming to be obscured by some kind of cloud or mist. On a few occasions, when the sunlight fell on that part of the moon's surface at just the proper angle, the supposed fog above the craterlet seemed, M. Bidault, de 1'Isle reports, to be shin- ing by reflection, precisely gs the top of a thin fog bank would shine on earth. French astronomers are urging ama- teur observers everywhere to keep close watch of such small details of the satellite, so that whatever is going on will have less chance of being missed. - s Headed for Broadway. From the Fort Wayvne News-Sentinel. That New York girl who got four trafiic tags in four minutes is justified in looking forward to a career with her name spelled \in lights outside the es. § THE LIBRARY TABLE By the Booklover In his preface to “Hangman's House,” Donn Byrne wrote: “I am certain that no race has for its home the intense love we Irish have for Ireland. It is more than love. It is a passion. We make no secret of it, and people gibe at us, saying, with a sneer that does not speak well of their manners, ‘Why don't you go back to Ireland?’ Which is not merited, for every one must know the intricate prison this life is, and how this friendship, that grave, and even the unutterable vulgarity of money matters tie us to an alien land. So that to many a million of us, and a million’s sons and daughters, Ireland must be a land of dreams.” An ardent lover of Ireland and proud of his ancient North Ireland ancestry, Donn Byrne was born in New York City. He was taken to Ireland, however, in his infancy and there his childhood was spent in the wooded Gounty of Antrim. ‘When, after graduation from the Uni- versity of Dublin, he began to write, he found his impoverished country a poor place in which to market his literary productions. So he came back to America and found a living in editorial writing. His fortune seemed made when he had a story accepted by the “Saturday Evening Post.” Other stories followed and his first published volume, “Stories Without Women,” ap- peared in 1915. For some years he and his wife lived in Riverside, Conn., but finally when the “vulgarity of money matters” no longer tied him to “an alien land,” they returned to Ireland and lived at Castle Coolmain, in County Cork. His death near there this past Summer seems more tragic because so unnecessary. With the recklessness one familiar with his romances would ex- pect of him, he refused to give up driv- ing his motor car, even though the steering gear was bedly out of order, and was killed when the car ran off the road and over the sea wall. * K kK TLovers of the delicacy of Donn Byrne's | Celtic mysticism and subtle Irish char- acters feit a pang of sadness at the cut- ting short of his life before he was 40, at the thought that no more storles of rare quelity will come from his brain. He has been called the leader of the neo- Celtic school—a_school of revival of Celtic culture. But no school lains him. He is different from Yeats, Synge, Russell (&) Lady Gregory —and other Celtic revivalists. His chief vol- umes of tales and romances are “‘Stories Without Women,” “The Strangers’ Ban- quet,” “The Foolish Matron,” “The ‘Woman God Changed,” “Messer Marco Polo,” “The Wind Bloweth,” “Changeli: and Other Stories,” “Blind Rafier: “O'Malley of Shanganah.” “Hangman’ House,” “Brother Saul,” “Crusade” and “Destiny Bay.” * ok koK “Destiny Bay” was published this Au- tumn, after his death. It is a collection of tales, held together in a sort of unity by their relation to the MacFarlane family of Destiny Bay, on the west coast of Ireland, near Donegal. The first tale, “Tale of My Cousin Jenico at Spanish Men's Rest,” has added flavor when it is known that Donn_ Byrne's ancestors were dark-skinned Iberians, who found a home in Ireland, and that in a later period some of them returned to Spain to learn warcraft. Th2 name Donn is a form of the Spanish Don. | The style of these Irish-Spanish tales is of a distinction not often encountered in the fiction of today—or of yesterday, for that matter. In a brief foreword Donn Byrne asks that nothing in the stories be interpreted as having any po- litical significance with regard to the rival governments of Ireland. Donn Byrne, the artist, cares nothing for poli- tics. “The author,” he says, “has never yet seen a government that brought salmon in the rivers or a more purple heather, and for this reason politics mean nothing to him.” The first two tales and the eighth are the best—"Tale of My Cousin Jenico,” “Tale of My Aunt Jenepher's Wooing” and “Tale of Kerry.” The charm of Destiny Bay pervades all the tales. “Northward of us roars the Atlantic to the Pole, now gentle as a lake, as a blue lake at noon, comes out, now ruthless and fierce as the Ancient of Days, grey and horrible as the Baphomet of Templar tradition, and as merciless. And south of us is the brown belt of bogland, white in Summer with the lonely canavan, the white bogflowers, and the gentle sally trees, from which harps are mads {brown bog and black water. * * * Al- ways Destiny Bay was a good place to return to. The hawthorn trees heavy with moss, the shrubs near the cliffs, flying like sphinxes landward, because of the weight of the Atlantic storms, the crying of the curlew and the peewit, the vast sailing moon—all these were things not to be duplicated elsewhere. Always there would be my Aunt Jene- pher with her gracious beautiful pres- ence and her understanding, and my Uncle Valentine, who is the easiesf man in_the world to borrow money from.” In the third generation a small girl is born, and Kerry, who is telling the family story, describes her, with poetry and philosoph: “My cousin, small Jenepher, sleeping in_his arms, had life before her, and my heart went out suddenly to her butter-coloured hair, her face like warm ivory, her hands like curled rose leaves. God bless you, little gentlewoman, and bring you without too much heartbreak through the in- tricacy of life, and give you peace in the end among the blue hills of Derry at Destiny Bay!” * koK ok “The slight thing staggered a little. Under the strokes of her tongue, which softly touched him here and there, he drew himself together and stood still. His little red coat, that was still some- what tousled, bore fine white spots, and on his vague baby face there was still a deep, sleepy expression.” Such was Bambi, faun hero of Felix Salten's forest tale “Bambi.” The story of Bambi's life is told from this hour of his birth to the end. His friendship and discipleship toward the old stag Prince and his love for the doe Faline are poetically described. The other animals of the forest are the friends and neighbors of Bambi. The transla- tion of the book is by Whittaker Cham- bers. * ok kK On February 15, 1880, the first wire- less telephone was ready.for an outdoor test, notes Catherine Mackenzie in he: biography of ‘‘Alexander Graham Bell, Just published. “It was a beautiful clear day, brilliant with sunshine. Tainter took the transmitting apparatus to the top of the Franklin School building, a little over 230 yards away. Listening in the workshop, Bell heard, ‘Mr. Bell, Mr. Bell, if you hear what I say, come to the window and wave your hat!’ Bell rushed to the window and waved. The photophone was born. BeH forgot to go home. A messenger found him later, absorbed in the latest child of his brain, to tell him that he had a new daughter.” * ok ok % Johan Bojer, world-famous author of such novels as “The Great Hunger” and its sequel, “The New Temple,” was as poor in his younger days as a peasant boy can be. Of these days he writes: “We went to school six days every month, and read just enough to make books and knowledge treasured things. * * * The houses were gray, and the rocks were gray, and the sea was grdy grayness lay heavily on men’s minds. Religion was gray, consisting chiefly of fear of Hell.” Many suggestions of Bojegs own youth are found in the story of Peer in “The Great Hunger” and of Lorentz in “The New Temple.” ] ‘The indefatigable E. Barrington, acting in her nom de plume personality, has recently produced still another bio- graphical novel, “The Empress of Hearts,” a story of Marie Antoinette, especially of her connection with the famous diamond necklace. The ill-fated Quoen is represented, as history repre- sents her, as a victim of the political and social sins of others, a woman in- capable of comprehending her age but suffering the penalty of living in it. heavier apples to the trees or heavier | PO) as a violet lake when the evening star | yim ‘y ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN. There is no other agency in the world that can answer as many legitimate I questions as our free Information Bu- reau in Washington, D. C. This highly organized institution has been built up and is under the personal direction of Frederic J. Haskin. By keeping in con- stant touch wth Federal bureaus and other educational enterprises it is in a position to pass on to you authorita- tive information of the highest order. Submit your queries to the staff of ex- perts whose services are put at your free disposal. There is no charge except 2 cents in coin or stamps for return postage. Address The Evening Star Information Bureau, Frederic J. Haskin, Director, Washington, D. C. Q. What class of mail is the most remunerative?—G. E. B. A. First-class mail is the most re- munerative. Second-class mail is the least remunerative Q. What was the first successful Vita- phone play?—A. M. A. The first successful photoplay pro- duced on the Vitaphone was “Don Juan.” starring John Barrymore. It was first shown at the Warner Theater, New York City, August, 1927. Q. Where is the new waterfall that world?>—A. R. S. A. According to a recent newspaper account, the highest waterfall in the world has been discovered on the French Island of Nukuhiva, one of the largest of the Marquesas. It is estimated that the water falls from a height of 1,160 feet. Ordinarily the width is about 10 feet, but this is increased during the rainy season. It is located 3 miles from the sea. picker gather in a day?—C. E. A. The average daily amount gath- ered by each picker is three bushels, Q. Why was a_Pullman car named after a porter?—J. K. A. A car was named for Oscar J. Daniels, a porter, who was killed in a wreck on the D, L. & W., after sav- ing the lives of his passengers on June 16, 1925. Q. Are there rules for progressive auction such as those for auction bridge? —D. D. A. The laws of auction bridge of the Whist Club ot New York are in general use in the United States. This club has not formulated laws for progres- sive auction. The laws for the first game are followed except as to scoring and the playing of rubbers. Several ! auction experts include chapters on progressive auction in their books on bridge and suggest methods of pro- gression and scoring. Local custom seems to govern to a great extent. Q. What were the principal foods in ‘The news comes that Prof. Einstein has uttered another pronouncement about scientific mysteries which has set the “Sc. Ds.” at loggerheads again. If any reader is aghast at the fear that this column is going to explain the Einstein theory of relativity, be it iknown absolutely that the panic is un- founded. There are only a few of us who can comprehend what it is all about—proving that a straight line is inot the shortest. It would be unthink- able betrayal of the others to make a cnmp‘!:le comprehension of relativity ular. ut this new Einsteinism is simple; it is a declaration that the scientist has discovered the identity of gravitation jand magnetism. ~Anybody who can prove that may also answer the ques- tions, What is life? or What is electric- ity, whicn may be used in producing ’Tag’nctlsm? or What really is gravita- ion? Didn't Newton say it was “apple- |sauce” when a big green apple fell on rom the tree? Science is really “wonderful” when it can discard slang and tell just what is the force of at- traction which holds the ‘universe to- gether and moves the ocean and tides. * ok ok % A man visited a petrified forest of our great Southwest, and grew excited in describing its wonders. “Why, everything there was peetre- fied!” he declared. “There were trees— solid stone—all peetrefied, but standing like a growing forest. There were men—all peetrefied. I saw one old fellow—peetrefied—just aiming his stone gun at a bird a-flying over the stone forest, and that-there bird—it was peetrefied, but it jest kep on a-flying, and it got away.” “Oh,” protested a listener-in, “that’s nonsense, man! What's the use of | telling us that that-there bird was peetrefied and yet kep on a-flying?" “Waal, I guess I saw it was peetrefied all right.” “But how could it fly if it was peetrefied? Gravitation would make that impossible. The stone bird would fall.” ravy-tation? What's that? Oh, yes—gravytation! But don't you see? ‘That gravytation, it was peetrefied, too.” So Einstein is not the first to an- nounce how to petrify gravitation, as this story demonstrates. But it remains for a learned professor of science con- nected with Princeton University, jump- | ing at the Einstein bait ever before the | details reach America, to suggest that probably this discovery will enable us to so insulaté graviiation with mag- netism, and thus to be able to fly through infinite space. He illustrates his suggestion by stating that he has seen a_ bar of a certain light metal suspended in air above a magnet, with no visible means of support; hence all we need is magnets on our shoes strong enough and we may emulate Jules Verne’s journey to the moon. Aviation is only in its Infancy, as is also imaginatian. * koK K Connected with the Bureau of Standards is Dr. Paul R. udying gravitation; he has scales on ich he weighs the world, as a grocer weighs sugar. Dr. Heyl may never have visited the petrified forest, but he takes no stock in the petrified bird which got away from the petrified gun, for he de- clares that there is no material in the earth nor in the heavens above, nor in the waters under the earth, which will insulate gravitation. Nor any insulation for centrifugal force. * ok kK An esteemed reader of Background of Events writes to express surprise at a quotation from Dr. Abbot, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution—to the ef- fect that light is matter, and that after it reaches, and is absorbed by, infinite space and darkness, it is still raw ma- terial for the recreation of universes. The critic charges that Dr. Abbot chal lenges the “indestructibility of matter. Here is the knockout, from our eritic, Mr. G. H. Heal “Having received your delightful com- ment on my criticism of the Wilson- Lansing affair, I feel emboldened to teke up a statement in this evening'’s Star: * * * for matter never ceases to exist. How did it begin?" Perhaps you will be interested in an article by Dr. Abbot which appeared in the Annual Report of the Smith- sonian_Institution for 1926, entitled “The Evolution of the Stars,” begin- ning on page 175. Having been brought up on the ven- erable theory of the indestructibility end permanency of matter, I was shock- ed to read some (to me) revolution- ary statements by Dr. Abbot. For in- stance, on page 176: “Considcr a hydrogen atom. It is just one proton with one electron re- volving about it, comparable to the is supposed to be the highest in the | Q. How many coffee berries can a | United States | Heyl. who has speut many years in| recent statement contained therein—a | ierusnlem in the time of Solomon?—P, A. The principal articles of food of the common -people during the time of Solomon were wheat and barley meal, fish, lentils, olives and their oil, locusts insect), honey, figs. grapes, mulberries, melons and peaches. Meat was an article of luxury, the flesh of goats being perhaps the most commonly used. Swine, of course, were altogether forbidden as an article of food. Q. How long has Amelia Earhart been flying?—G. C. A. She has been flying since 1920, | has been more than 500 bours in air and traveled over 50,000 miles. Q. When was Washington, D. C., so named?—M. W. A. In September, 1791, | passed an act naming the trict the District of Columbia giving the name of Washingion to city itself. Q. Why do they not have co-educa= tion in Japan?—L. G. Many universities in Ja girls as ors,” but not fully credited students, because there are n | preparatory institutions which qual'iy girls for admission. The girl stud-nts | are not regarded as university gradaates | even if they complete the regular ~ourse with high standin Girl students in Tokio are making a vigorous czmpaign for co-education both in univerrities and preparatory schools throughout Japan. and the an_admit Q. Who invenfed coca cola and who named it?>—R. D. § A. Dr. J. S. Pemberton of Atlanta, Ga., was the orizinator of coca cola, In 1836 he perfected the heverage and put it on the market. Ap associate, P. M. Robinson, suggested the name coca cola. Q. In 1830 how many mil road were there in this count , A. There appear to have been less than 30 miles. With'n the following decade about 3,000 mil»s were laid. Q. Where is Gene Stratton Porter's Limberlost cabin?—F. M. A. Limberlos abin was built on Sylvan Lake near Fome City in the northern part of Inciana. Q. When was the first ironclad ship used?—T. W. C. A. The first real 2rmored vessels were the floating batteri»s used at the siege of Gibraltar in 17 France was the first to produce a seagoing armored ship. Four were commenced in 1858. The first to be completed was the Gloire. In 1861 the United States Con- gress passed an act providing for ar- mored vessels. Under the provisions of this act the Galena, the New Ironsides and the Monitor were built. of rail- >—O0. C. BACKGROUND OF EVENT BY PAUL V. COLLINS. very powerfully because they are so very close together. If the motion that holds them apart could be scopped. the electron would fall in upon the proton. What would result? Apparently ane nihilation. Similarly,-all of the chem- ical atoms—that is, the whole universe —if deprived of all the inner atomic motions, would apparently be annihilat- |ed. In place of the universe would be a void. If the process were reversed, a void, separated into positive and negative unit electrical ~charges, and endowed with imme ‘encrgy of mo- tions in characteristic grbits, would be- come a universe. That would be the primary step in evoluiion itself. . “How did that primary step take place? Science does not pretend to know. “The Hebrew Scripture says: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void: and darkness was upon the face of the deep. * * * And God ifllfli Let there be light: and there was “In this there is nothing which con- tradicts what science has disclosad. “Now, is Abbot an evolutionist, or |a creationist, or is he on the fence? He is an evolutionist, but may not deny that it may be creative evolution.” * ok ok % It must be pointed cut that there‘are two distinct hypotheses concerning light; ssumes that it is material—*cor- g bration of the atoms of the ether which fills all space. If light be matter, it can be ab- sorbed in infinite space and be lost as light, but it remains matter floating in space, and becomes raw material to be recreated in making new worlds, “for mfilter;g;r‘r ceases to exist T t says (Smithsonian report, 1927, page 159): “All that we kno)\:'ool astronomy devends on radiation. But the nature of radiation itself is more mysterious than was supposed 30 years ago. At the end of the nineteenth cen- tury it was agreed that radiation is & transverse wave of vibration, set up in the luminiforous ethor by the stimulus of the violent intornal motions of the molecules of heated substances. All the phenomena of the propagation of light, highly complex and varied though they are. seemed to be explained satisfac. torily in this way. Yet now the newly gained knowledge of the *composition and interior structure of the atoms, in- cluding the phenomena of radioactivity, seems to require a reconsideration of the older hypothesis of corpuscular radiation, which Newton preferred.” So again light is recognized as mat- ter pouring out from the sun contin- uously and filling our universe 'with tangible material from the flues of that great furnace. * ok ok ok Discussing this same topic, Dr. Heyl :7’\“; in ;}\ Rr‘!llclc published in the Sci- ic Monthly, October, 1925, * Inertia of Energy": e The total energy radiated by our sun per second is enormous. Converted into its mass equivalent, it gives the rather surprising figure of four million tons per second. This is not so easy to detect as might appear, for so super- enormous is the sun's mass that he is good for this rate of expenditure for something like ten million million years, So 1t seems that our sun and all other stars are slowly dissolving into light.” The enormity of the sun accounts for the supplies of its fuel, and not outside sources renewing supplies. Our human period of observation is too short (only a few centuries) for any measurement s of the sun's mass, even though its fuel bill does amount to four million tons a second. Light is matter; light is convertible into heat and heat into encrgy: so matter may be converted into energy, and again en- ergy may be reconverted into matter, and, out of dissolved light, worlds may bf'M!nrm:d. atter energy, therefore, remains truly indestructible. Dr. Heyl, spealu:z of the rather new doctrine of the in- terchangeability of matter and energy, says: “But how can matter disa ? What then becomes of the ‘Ep'el;l conservation of matter, established over a century ago by Lavoisier, and long regarded as a great and perma- nent contribution to science? And how can energy appear without a core responding disappearance of energy else- where? What of the law of conserva- ton of energy, which has, since its foundation, enjoved an esteem equal to t'at accorded the law of conservation of matter? The doctrine of inertia of energy declares unflinchingly that both laws are wrong; that matier may ac- tually disappear as such, and ens in equivalent quantity appear in stead. In place of the two former I we have one broader princivle—the co: servation of matter energy.” €o the sun takes motier and makes light of it. and recreation takes light carth with iis one moon. The two units of eu;mdt: attract one another A and changes it back into matter. “Now are ye the sons of light.” (Copyright, 1929, by Paul V. Colitna.) / g